“What?” she said, in hollow tones.
Editha repeated her question.
“We’ve had no fire for a week, miss,” she said, with an effort to arouse herself; “but it hasn’t been quite so bad until to-day, for the sun comes in at the window when it’s pleasant, and we could sit in that and keep comfortable.”
Comfortable!
Editha thought of the cheerful fire in her grate at home, while the house was also heated from attic to cellar with steam, and her heart smote her painfully.
“And have you absolutely nothing to eat?” she asked, her eyes filling with tears.
“We have not been entirely without food until to-day; we ate our last penny’s worth of bread yesterday,” the woman answered, with a deep-drawn sigh, and, from her manner of speaking, Editha instinctively knew that at some previous time in her life she had known “better days.”
“Has your husband been ill long?” she asked, with a glance toward the ghastly sleeper.
“Two or three months; he had a bad fall awhile ago, and lay out in the rain and cold for several hours. The fall strained him, and that, with the cold he took, threw him into a quick consumption. He will live only a few days longer,” she concluded, with a sigh. “But how do you happen to be here?” she asked a moment after, with a stare of surprise at Editha’s rich garments. It had but just come to her that she was entertaining a very unusual guest.
“I met your daughter in the street, and she told me of your suffering; so I came to see what I could do for you,” was the gentle answer.